


Coming Back to You

by queercapwriting (queergirlwriting)



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Sanvers Endgame, Sanvers slow burn, but endgame, endgame i promise, just a whole lot of sanvers okay?, sanvers reunion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-02-11 12:15:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 13,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12935064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queergirlwriting/pseuds/queercapwriting
Summary: “alex has a kid on her own... and meets maggie again later and they slowly get back together” prompt from @thebiwisebrownkid on tumblr.Aaaand that sums it up, folks. Slow burn, Sanvers endgame.





	1. Chapter 1

They stay in touch for a while, especially since Maggie stays in touch with Alex’s friends. 

Because they’re her friends – her family – now, too.

But years pass, and they text less and less. They call less and less. 

Not for any reason, other than the simple need to let go.

The simple need to try and live outside of each other.

Part of that need, for Alex, is a child.

And it’s years later, and she’s slept with a lot of women – she’s dated a lot of women – but no one has been… 

She’s on her own, now.

Well, on her own with her sister, with her family.

And they’re all extremely supportive when she says she wants to have a baby on her own.

J’onn never got to be a grandfather, after all, and even though they still try to hide the fact that either of them can cry from the DEO, in truth everyone’s known for years; they just finally see it, now.

She thinks of Maggie throughout her pregnancy. 

Not nearly as much as she did years ago.

But… enough.

Enough to make her heart throb with yearning. An old yearning that feels like a small tug rather than the sharp stab it used to feel like with each breath.

But when Kim is born, she becomes Alex’s entire world.

She’s all Alex thinks about.

Well, Kim and her newest alien weaponry.

It’s raining one day, and Kim is five, and they’re running.

Not from an attack.

They’re running just… because.

Running to find the biggest puddles to splash in, and Alex is nothing if not ecstatic.

And then Kim runs into – literally, runs full speed into – the legs of a woman.

Legs that, even after all these years, Alex knows all too well.

“Sorry!” Kim splutters at the woman as Alex just freezes.

“Well that’s okay,” she hears a voice that makes her heart crack, that makes her knees nearly give out. The woman sinks to one knee in front of Kim, paying no heed to the rain, to the damp, to the mess. “Bet you’re looking around for puddles to stomp in, huh?”

Kim nods eagerly, and Alex can’t help the small smile that forms on her lips.

“An excellent thing to do in the rain. But kiddo, are you with a grownup?”

“Yeah!” Kim smiles broadly, with the massive gestures befitting a kindergartener, and she splays her hands out behind the woman, toward Alex. “My mommy’s a grownup!”

“She is, huh?” the woman chuckles, and Alex’s heart freezes and her entire world crashes into Maggie Sawyer’s eyes.

“Alex,” Maggie breathes after a beat of silence, a beat of shock, a beat of nothing but memories of soft touches and late night laughs and orgasmic screams and agonized parting. 

“You and Mommy are friends?!” Kim jumps up and down excitedly, and Maggie doesn’t even reach up to wipe her face from the extra droplets Kim splashes onto her cheeks.

“Yeah, Kim, this… this is Maggie, sweet face. An old… an old friend of Mommy’s.”

She talks to her daughter, but her eyes belong to Maggie.

As many women as she’s been with over the years, her eyes have always belonged to Maggie.

Maggie rises from her knee, slow and shaking and open-mouthed.

“You wanna come stomp puddles with us?” Kim reaches for Maggie’s hand, and Alex thinks she sees tears starting to mingle with rain drops on Maggie’s face.

Her hair is shorter, now. 

She’s even more beautiful than she was years ago.

Alex didn’t think that was possible.

“She uh… inherited certain things from Auntie Kara,” Alex stammers uselessly, and Maggie clears her throat once, twice. Three times. Not enough. 

“Yeah, sure sweetheart, if um… if your mom’s okay with that?” 

It’s an innocent question, but it’s also a prayer.

Because neither of them are big believers in fate, but maybe… maybe that’s what this is.

So Alex nods, and Kim laughs, and she takes Alex’s hand in her free one, and she tugs.

Tugs Alex and Maggie with her, begs them to help her fly. Like Auntie Kara.

Their eyes meet through the pouring rain – both of them drenched and breathless and full of something they haven’t felt in years – as they swing Kim through the air, as her shrieking giggles pierce through the storm in the air and the storms in their eyes.

“You’re good at this, Maggie!” Kim giggles, and Maggie nearly runs.

Nearly.

But she ran once.

She won’t again.

Something about destiny and soulmates and true love.

Something about the look in Alex’s eyes.

“Does she have another mommy?” Maggie asks, keeping her question neutral for the child.

Alex shakes her head, trembling suddenly.

Maggie strips off her oversized rain slicker and lets go of Kim’s hand for a moment. “Sorry sweetie, your mommy looks cold, huh?”

“No, Maggie, you’ll be cold, I – “

“I’ll survive somehow, Danvers,” Maggie assures her, and they both freeze when her hands graze Alex’s hair, her skin. They both freeze when suddenly they’re breathing each other’s breath and they’re close enough to count the rain drops and tear drops on each other’s faces.

“Oooh, Mommy, maybe you should ask Maggie on a date! Like Auntie Kara and Aunt Lena!”

Maggie snorts despite herself. “That finally happened then?” she asks, and Alex’s eyes glisten.

“Come home with us and I’ll give you more updates. And we can get you out of those clothes – “

“Danvers – “

“And into something warm.”

“Alex – “

“I’m – no, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed you’d want to catch up, you’re probably just – “

“Alex. Can you get Kara to watch Kim for the night? I… I want to give each other more than updates. If you… if you want.”

“But you… you don’t want…”

“I never stopped wanting you. And – “ She glances down at Kim, bouncing on the balls of her feet, waiting patiently for Alex to be done with grownup talk, murmuring something to herself about the water cycle and its impact on plant growth.

“And who could say no to someone so beautiful, who came from someone so beautiful?”

“Maggie – “

“I’m not making any decisions, Danvers. I’m just asking if we can talk, and see… see if we could still…” Her eyes drift down to Alex’s lips, and Alex’s take the same journey across Maggie’s face. “Please?”

Something about fate. Something about destiny. Something about true love and soulmates and meant to be.

“Yes,” she tells her without hesitation, and when she reaches down, she finds that their hands still fit perfectly together. “Absolutely we can.”

And Kim isn’t the only one who feels like she’s flying through the rest of their adventures in the rain.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kim Ships It and Maggie's become a Captain since... then.

Alex had been right: Maggie did get cold after stripping off her oversized jacket and putting it around Alex’s shoulders.

She did get cold, but that cold isn’t the reason she’s shaking.

“Are you a policeperson?” Kim asks out of nowhere as they walk through the rain, and Maggie looks down at her, startled before she realizes she probably shouldn’t be startled at all.

“And why would you think that?” she asks her as Alex runs a hand through her own wet hair and Maggie tries not to break, tries to keep her attention on the child with Alex’s eyes and apparently, with Alex’s sharp mind.

The child that was just an idea when they broke up, but is very, very real now.

Very, very real now, and holding both Maggie and Alex’s hands, strolling through the rain like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Maggie’s never been more grateful for the protective covering of raindrops on her face.

“Well,” Kim squints and tilts her head, just like her mother. 

Maggie’s heart lurches with an acute kind of pain she hasn’t felt in so many years. Because she hasn’t felt much of anything in so many years. 

“You’re not wearing your badge, but your jeans have a little mark where a badge would go. And your eyes keep going everywhere like you’re trying to notice everything on the street all at the same time. So you could be a soldier or you could be an agent like Mommy or you could be a cop. I think cop because you don’t walk all stiff like that soldier Mommy dated last year.”

“Kimmy,” Alex groans softly, and Maggie forces herself to keep all her attention on the child, the child, not… not… anything else.

“And it seems like Mommy’s already training you to be a secret agent, huh?” she tries to keep her voice even, and she hopes Alex doesn’t hear it trembling.

“She says I can be anything! Last week I wanted to make new computer programs like Uncle Winn, but this week I think I might want to take pictures like Uncle Jimmy.” The girl shrugs gamely. “Can you fly me again?”

So they do, counting back from three and swinging their arms out so Kim’s feet leave the ground, both grateful for a five-year-old’s rapid changing of conversational pace, both grateful for her joyful shrieks so they don’t risk hearing each other’s pain.

And again, Maggie almost runs.

Because Alex looks… it suits her. 

Being a mom.

Somehow, unexpectedly, it suits her, and Maggie is lost in the last time they made love, lost in the last time they danced, the last time that Alex said she loved her, but it wasn’t enough, she wasn’t enough, she was never enough –

And suddenly Alex’s hands are bracing on her upper arms, and suddenly her face is so close to hers, and Maggie almost forgets everything, almost forgets the interceding years, almost forgets the numbness and the mindless sex and the endless scotch and the constant overtime at work, because Alex Danvers is within kissing distance and Alex Danvers is –

“Maggie, you’re shaking,” she’s saying, and Maggie has to blink several times to process what the sounds passing through her lips mean. “You’re shaking all over, I told you you’d get cold, here – “

“No, Danvers, it’s fine, keep it on, I – “

“Maggie – “

“Alex – “

“Please.” 

Their eyes lock in a battle that has absolutely nothing to do with the cold, but everything to do with the actual reason Maggie is shaking.

And then Maggie’s phone vibrates.

Of course it does.

Her stomach sinks as she and Alex jump apart, as they both chuckle humorlessly because sometimes, things never change.

“Captain Sawyer,” she answers crisply, and she chances a glance at Alex’s face.

She’s rewarded with the way Alex’s eyes widen with surprise and with pride and with something that looks – or used to look – like arousal.

Maggie dismisses that as a possibility, because no, because she wasn’t enough then, all the promotions in the world wouldn’t be enough to make her enough now…

But she was only supposed to be in National City for the afternoon, and she’d run into… something about fate.

Something about destiny.

“Yeah. Yeah, he gave me the files, I’ll be bringing them back on the first train out tomorrow. No, plans… something came up, and I’ll be staying the night after all. Yes. Okay. Bye.”

“Captain,” Alex croaks as Maggie slips her phone back into her pocket, and Maggie’s throat is suddenly very, very dry.

“I still have a few CIs here who will only work with me, and I – “

“Captain,” Alex repeats, and Kim’s eyes narrow slightly as she watches her mom’s eyes and the eyes of this woman lock with a particular type of intensity she’s never seen in her mother before.

Maggie shrugs. “A lot’s changed,” she says simply, and neither of them swing their eyes down to Kim. They just keep locked on each other.

“A lot’s changed,” Alex repeats, more to herself than to Maggie, her voice low and cracked and just this side of broken.

“Mommy, I miss Auntie Kara. I can see her tonight, right? We can make our thunderstorm fort together,” Kim chimes, and Maggie resists the impulse to offer the kid a high five and a job as a junior detective.

“Yeah, sweet face. Yeah. Let me call her right now,” Alex smiles as she pokes her daughter’s chin playfully, and Maggie’s heart lurches as Kim giggles and blinks extra hard at her.

Maggie tilts her head thoughtfully. Was the kid… trying to wink?

Was she that obvious?

Was Alex?

Was there anything for Alex to be obvious about?

She didn’t want her. She hadn’t wanted her.

Not enough, anyway, not…

But she’s calling Kara to watch Kim tonight, and her eyes are on Maggie even as she walks away to make the call, and there’s something in those eyes that…

Maggie gulps.

Something like fate. Something like destiny.

Something like second chances.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex starts talking it out with Kara

“Alex, hey,” Kara answers, and Alex flinches, because she knows that voice.

The voice that Kara has when she’s… occupied… in Lena’s office, and she’s only pausing to pick up because it’s Alex calling, and something might be wrong.

Because even with Kim in their lives now, that’s still the kind of life they lead.

“Sorry, I – you know what, never mind, I’ll call James, it’s okay – “

“No, Alex, no.” Kara is chastising, now, and it pulls a smile from Alex’s lips, as it always does when her little sister gets protective of her. “Something’s wrong. Tell me, it’s okay.”

So Alex takes a deep breath, and she turns. She turns to look back down the block at the people she’d stepped away from to make this call.

Her daughter.

And her…

And Maggie.

Maggie is back down on one knee, leaning forward with her forearms on her thigh, nodding intently as Kim animatedly tells her one story or another.

Alex swallows tears and vomit and something that feels like angsty love songs from high school and the first truly warm day of spring.

“Kim and I ran into Maggie,” she forces herself to say, her voice small. At least she won’t have to say anything else. Because Kara will understand… everything. Just from that sentence.

And sure enough, a thump echoes through the other end of the phone.

A thump and an “ow” and a “shit baby I’m so sorry, I’ve got you, you’re not hurt, are you?”

Alex worries at the bridge of her nose with her thumb and her index finger.

“You dropped Lena from a compromising position, didn’t you?” she asks, and she can see Kara blush even though she’s not the sister with superpowers and Kara is all the way across town.

“I’m quite alright, Alex!” Lena calls, and Alex groans.

“Alex though. Maggie? Is she… why is she – are you alright? Do you need me to come and – “

“No, Kara – “

“No, really, I’m on my way right now – “

“Kara, no, listen to me. I… I was wondering if you and Lena could watch Kimmy tonight.”

She doesn’t elaborate, and she can practically see Kara’s eyes flying wide.

“Oh. Ohhhhh. You want to – Alex, is… is that a good idea? Sleeping with your ex just because you ran into – “

“What, Kara, no! We’re not – “ Alex covers her face with her hand and lowers her voice, realizing she’d shouted when Kim and Maggie both turn to look at her, both with tilted heads, Kim’s face etched with curiosity and Maggie’s etched with an elegant combination of terror, concern, and barely guarded longing.

“We’re not sleeping together,” Alex hisses into the phone, turning around and cupping her hand around the phone like that alone can protect her face from burning red, can protect Maggie from reading her body language like a book.

“I just… she’s in town, and she thought… I… we both thought… we could catch up.”

A small silence.

“Catch up and?” Kara’s voice is soft, and it holds no judgment, only concern, only unbridled love.

“Catch up and… I don’t know. See if we can be friends, or… I don’t know… I just… catching up. She’s a captain now, you know, not a detective anymore. She… Is that okay? Are you and Lena free?”

“Even if we weren’t, Alex, we’d make time. You know that.”

Alex considers asking her to fly across town right then and there, just so she could hug her, tight and trembling and safe.

“Thank you,” she breathes, and she tries to pour all her gratitude for her little sister into the words.

Kara’s voice is smiling when she responds, so Alex thinks she was effective. “I love you. And I’m proud of you. Go be amazing, okay? Just text me when and where you want us to get Kim. And… if it doesn’t feel too weird, tell Maggie I said hi, okay?”

Alex nods before realizing Kara can’t see her. “Yeah. Yeah.” She runs a hand through her hair, still sopping from the earlier downpour, as she turns to watch the resumed conversation between her daughter and… and Maggie.

She takes a sigh that’s supposed to steady her, but instead makes her tremble.

Maggie’s jacket around her shoulders smells like her, somehow, even through the rain.

Alex shivers.

“I love you,” she tells Kara while she looks at Maggie.

She hangs up, tries to breathe, tosses back her shoulders, and strides toward the woman from her past and the child who feels like her future, wondering if there is enough hope in love for Maggie to become… both.

Again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maggie and Kim talk; Maggie and Alex almost hug. Almost.

When Alex steps away to call her sister – to see if Kara can take care of Kim tonight – Maggie finds herself down on one knee, looking into the eyes of a little girl who looks and sounds, excruciatingly, like the woman she…

But she makes herself pay attention. Because Kim apparently has a lot to say.

“And Aunt Sara is from a whole different universe, and they took me there last year. Mommy and Aunt Kara. I met…” Kim turns and looks around and gestures for Maggie to come closer, bringing her pudgy little fingers up to her mouth for increased secrecy. “I met the Flash! And the Green Arrow! I thought the Green Arrow would be scary, but he’s not. He makes much better food than Mommy, only don’t tell her, because Uncle Barry says we should keep it a secret.”

“Well, your Uncle Barry’s a smart man.”

Kim lights up at that. “He’s a cop! Like you! Well, sort of. He’s a science cop,” she explains conspiratorially. 

“Well you know what, kiddo?” Maggie waves Kim in close, just like Kim had done to her a moment before. Kim giggles at the sharing of secrets and leans close with wide eyes. “I’m a science cop, too.”

But Alex’s loud exclamation on the phone with Kara a few paces away – a very noisy objection, a very pointed no, to something or other – makes Kim and Maggie both turn to look, Kim with curiosity burning on her face and Maggie, with a stir of emotions she hopes don’t show too much. 

She watches as Alex turns and lowers her voice, clearly flustered. She wonders what Kara said, and she wonders what Alex had nearly shouted that they weren’t doing; but she doesn’t have to wonder too hard. 

Because she remembers everything about Alex’s body. Everything about her body language. 

Kara had asked if they were going to sleep together.

And Alex had said no.

She tries not to let her heart sink. 

Of course they’re not going to sleep together. 

They’re going to catch up, they’re going to… hell, she doesn’t even know what they’re going to do. Doesn’t even know if it’s smart, or healthy, or even possible, to try to rebuild anything after… well, after everything.

“Why haven’t you seen my mom in so long?” Kim’s question jolts Maggie back to their conversation, and nearly topples her balance over.

Maggie tilts her head to the side and regards the child thoughtfully. She bites her lip and remembers the last kiss they shared. The last time she was in her arms. The last time she made her moan her name…

“I moved away, sweetie.”

No matter how many women she’s been with in the last few years, she hasn’t called anyone sweetie since Alex.

The syllables feel foreign rolling off her lips again; and the fact that they’d happened so naturally makes it feel even stranger, even more painful.

“Like Aunt Lucy?”

Maggie chuckles, remembering the night Alex’s eyes had flown wide open with the realization that she’d had a massive crush on Lucy Lane and just hadn’t recognized it as such.

“Yeah, a little like Aunt Lucy.”

She glances over at Alex to see her wrapping up her phone call.

To see Alex standing there, looking at her daughter and her ex-girlfriend, deep in conversation.

To see Alex still wrapped in Maggie’s jacket, hair still sopping from the earlier rain.

To see Alex’s lips form the words ‘I love you,’ and she’s looking at her, but she’s talking to Kara, and Maggie’s heart doesn’t know whether to expand in hope or shrivel in despair.

“Well? Can Aunt Kara watch me tonight?” Kim asks as Alex walks back toward them, distinctly avoiding Maggie’s eyes.

“She says she and Lena would like nothing more, sweet face. I’ll text to make sure she has everything she needs for your thunderstorm fort.”

Kim turns to Maggie gravely. “Aunt Kara doesn’t like thunderstorms,” she tells her, and Maggie nods with a faraway smile on her face.

“Yeah, I remember.” She tries to catch Alex’s eye, and when she does, she knows Alex is remembering the same thing she is: all those nights that Kara would show up in their apartment, soaked and shivering, to curl up between them and take refuge from the storm in the arms of her sisters.

Maggie wonders painfully if she’s lost the sister title forever.

Probably.

“Well,” Maggie sighs as she stands up. “I should… I should run back to the hotel, get out of these clothes. I… uh – get dry. And maybe we can meet – “

“Wherever you want.” Panic flits across Alex’s face, and it’s not lost on Maggie that Alex had invited her home, that they’re both backing away from that option now, because too much, too soon. Because… because.

“No, it’s okay, whatever’s easiest for you, Alex, I – “

“The bar’s too…“

“Yeah.”

A pause that cuts into Maggie’s bloodstream as their eyes lock into each other’s before looking somewhere, anywhere, else.

“So Noonan’s?”

It had always been part of their lives, but more Kara’s spot than theirs, so it was more… neutral. Potentially less agonizing.

“Sure thing. Just… just text me when Kara picks up Kim and I’ll meet you.”

“Right. Yeah. Okay.”

Maggie grimaces a smile at her, and looks down at Kim. “I’m gonna head off, okay kiddo? But maybe I’ll see you later?”

“I’d like that very much, Captain Maggie Sawyer,” Kim smiles brighter than she would have if her wheels weren’t turning so rapidly, and Maggie swallows a smirk of bemusement as she turns back to Alex.

“So – “

“Yeah.”

Maggie almost steps forward and Alex almost opens her arms for a hug.

Maggie almost leans up on her tip toes and Alex almost tilts her face down.

They both bounce unsteadily on the balls of their feet for a moment before they both blush and breathe out soft chuckles in acknowledgment of the awkwardness, of the maybe yes maybe no, of the years and the weight between them.

“Tonight,” Maggie nods, stepping back, out of hugging range. Out of kissing range. Out of danger range. “My number’s still the same. Do you – “

“I haven’t forgotten.” Alex’s voice is soft and Maggie thinks for a moment that her eyes might be wet. But she blinks, and when she looks back, she’s sure she was wrong.

“I’ll text you. Noonan’s,” Alex nods, and Kim’s eyes flutter between them both rapidly.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Maggie manages to choke out before she turns on her heel and heads back to the Baldwin.

She shoves her hands in her pockets to hide her trembling, realizing that her jacket is still wrapped around Alex’s shoulders, and she wonders if that’s the only thing she left with her.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex and Kim talk about her past with Maggie; Maggie calls M'gann to head off her nerves.
> 
> Both women are Extremely Gay Disasters.

She tries not to shake as she heads home with Kim, still skipping puddles and hoping that her daughter doesn’t notice the lack of another person walking with them; that she can’t fly if Maggie isn’t holding her other hand and lifting her in time with Alex.

“Mommy?” Kim says in her thoughtful voice, and Alex stomach seizes because she thinks she knows where this is going.

“Yes, sweet face?” she asks, giggling with her daughter as they hop up and into a puddle.

Kim lets the giggle subside before her face grows thoughtful again. “You and Detective Sawyer used to date, didn’t you?”

Alex nearly trips, and for a moment, she’s that twenty-something who doesn’t know how to talk about, let alone to, pretty girls.

“What makes you say that?” she asks, not knowing if she should be proud of her daughter’s observational skills or sad that the child is being raised by people with such intense jobs that it’s rubbing off on her.

“She got sad when I asked why you didn’t see each other in so long. And you blushed when you saw her. You only blush around girls you like.”

“Kimmy!” Alex chides in mock offense, and the child just laughs.

“See Mommy? You’re blushing again.”

Alex fake glares as she puts her hands on her thighs and stoops to her daughter’s eye level. “How did you get so smart, huh?”

“I learn from the best,” Kim smiles in an uncanny imitation of Winn when he’s particularly pleased with himself.

Alex just laughs and shakes her head.

But all she can see when she closes her eyes is Maggie, standing there in the rain, like a vision.

Like she’d dreamed of for so long.

Maggie, home.

Maggie, wanting to catch up with her.

Maggie, putting her jacket around her shoulders again.

Her jacket.

“Dammit!” Alex murmurs, and Kim claps both hands over her mouth.

“Mommy!” she reprimands with wide eyes, and Alex pulls Maggie’s jacket closer over her shoulders.

“Sorry, Kimmy – don’t you go saying words like that, okay? I’m sorry. I… I just realized that I forgot to give Maggie back her jacket.”

Kim tilts her head and appraises her mother lightly.

“It fits you better than it fits her,” she concludes, and Alex rolls her eyes gently and laughs.

“You don’t have to tell me that, sweet face.”

They let the sounds of the city fill the rest of the walk home, mother and daughter each lost in their own thoughts.

Across the city, Maggie, too, is absorbed in thoughts of her own.

She’s already on the treadmill in the crappy basement fitness center at the Baldwin, already sweating, already running hill sprints that leave her gasping for breath.

Alex hadn’t known she’d been promoted. Which meant that M’gann and J’onn really had kept their word – not that Maggie had doubted them – not to tell Alex anything she didn’t ask about.

Because Maggie, of course, still talks to M’gann on the regular, and M’gann, to J’onn.

And though he doesn’t want to cause Maggie pain by reaching out to her on his own, it’s always comforted to know that the father figure still cares enough to ask M’gann about the woman who was almost his daughter.

And it’s M’gann that she calls now, fumbling slightly to retrieve her phone from the water bottle compartment near the treadmill’s speed controls.

Her direct connection to Mars – M’gann’s gift to her on her latest visit to Earth – is just as sharp as it would be if M’gann were in Gotham.

“What’s wrong?” M’gann asks, because she can’t feel Maggie’s emotions from this distance; because Maggie is breathing harder than she realized, even though she’s now walking on the treadmill.

“Nothing, sorry, I… I was just doing some sprints.”

“And I ask again,” M’gann’s voice is both worried and amused. “What’s wrong? You’d never call me while you’re working out unless you’re working out as an alternative to getting unhealthily drunk.”

Maggie scowls playfully, knowing that M’gann will be able to see it without seeing it. She takes a few more deep breaths, slowing the treadmill to barely a crawl.

“I’m in National City,” is all she says, and it’s all she needs to say.

“Oh, Mags,” M’gann breathes, and Maggie is awed – not for the first time – by the fact that this is a woman who is literally fighting to rebuild a planet ravaged by genocide, but she still genuinely treats Maggie’s love life as worthy of empathy, of attention, of care. “Did you see her?”

There’s no need to identify the her.

Of course they mean Alex.

The woman who asked her to marry her before leaving her for a child that wasn’t, but now… was.

“Yeah,” Maggie breathes, and she’s barely surprised by the way her voice cracks.

“And?” 

“I met Kim. She’s… Alex named her after one of J’onn’s daughters, didn’t she?”

She hears M’gann sigh, and she wishes she could touch her arm, offer her a hug.

“Yes,” M’gann confirms, and Maggie nods as she wipes sweat from her brow and reaches for the towel she’d brought downstairs with her, doing a more thorough job with that than with her hand.

“You okay?”

“Oh, yeah. J’onn was honored. It… it was a beautiful day.”

“You never told me about it.”

“You never asked. And I didn’t think you’d…”

“Yeah.”

“Are you okay, Mags?”

“I’m seeing her tonight.” It takes her a moment to bring the name to her lips. But when she does, it sounds like a prayer. “Alex.”

“At the bar?” M’gann asks, and Maggie can hear the wounds that will never heal – for any of them – from the massacre, layered in her old friend’s voice.

“Nah, too many memories.”

“Yeah.”

They let a few beats of silence pass between them. 

“What the hell am I supposed to wear?” Maggie blurts suddenly, and M’gann’s laughter is sweet medicine in her hears.

“Tell me what’s in your suitcase,” she offers, and Maggie smiles for the first time, because if she’s going to do this – whatever the hell this is – at least she’s not doing it alone.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They finally have their date-not-date-date-not-date catch up session.
> 
> Sort of.

Alex gets to Noonan’s early. Of course she gets there early.

Lena and Kara had practically pushed her out of the apartment, assuring her that they won’t let Kim wait up for her, that they’ll call if anything catastrophic happens at the DEO.

That yes, she looks sexy but not over eager; that no, she won’t throw up, because no, Kara isn’t the only badass in the family, and she’s got this.

But still, she stops dead at the door to Noonan’s, unable to open the damn thing. Unable to control the tempo of her slamming heart.

Because she’s chosen to wear Maggie’s windbreaker over her black mesh tank top and jeans that are tighter than sin. But there’s a bite in the air tonight and she thinks that maybe she should have brought her own jacket so Maggie doesn’t think she’s trying to manipulate something. Angling for something.

She was the one who’d ended it, after all. 

She was the one who’d destroyed… everything.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. You have Kim now,” she mutters to herself forcefully, trying to calm her swirling mind. “Okay Danvers. You can do this. You can fly a damn Kryptonian pod. You can do this. You can – “

“Danvers?”

The sound of Maggie’s voice right behind her makes her nearly jump out of her skin.

“Shit,” she flinches before turning around with scrunched up eyes and a red-faced smile. “I’m sorry. Did you hear any of that? I’m sorry – “

“Don’t be, it was cute.” Maggie’s dimples are just barely showing, eyes on the ground. Her hands are buried deep in her black pants pockets, and the new red leather jacket laying across her shoulders makes Alex’s heart nearly stop.

There’s a beat of silence between them; a beat of memories of pajamas and first kisses and cold pizza.

“I’m sorry,” Maggie is the one to mutter this time, at the reference to old times; to when they were an us. But Alex shakes it off like she doesn’t hear her apology, because really, she has nothing to apologize for.

“Well, come in,” she offers a tilted grin, and steps back for Maggie to step into Noonan’s in front of her.

She tries to deliberately train her eyes away from Maggie’s ass. She fails, and she gulps.

Hard.

“By the window?” Maggie asks, looking over her shoulder, and Alex is grateful for the chance to talk about something mundane, to agree to taking a small table near the window, isolated enough but not too far removed.

Their eyes lock after they sit, after neither of them can fidget with the drink menus already on their table any longer.

“Is it weird that it was easier to talk with Kim here?” Maggie ventures first, and Alex’s heart stutters at the way her daughter’s name rolls off Maggie’s tongue.

Alex shrugs and tries to speak words, fighting a small smile when she remembers what Kim had told her earlier about blushing in front of pretty women.

And to call the woman sitting across from her pretty is certainly the understatement of the century.

“I don’t think so.” She ventures a glance into Maggie’s eyes and remembers how she used to drown in them. She wants nothing more than to lose herself in them again. Dammit. “Kids are a good buffer, you know? I can’t talk to any of the other parents at her school on my own, but if the kids are there, it’s easier.”

“Nothing to relate to?” Maggie tilts her head with the smile and slight crinkle behind her eyes that Alex wasn’t even sure she remembered, and she wants to both kiss her and run from her. 

“I guess. I can’t really get close to them, with my job, and I’m not exactly the best at making brownies for fundraisers.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t been publicly cited as the reason smoke detectors are such a booming business in National City,” Maggie teases, and Alex is spared the stammering that accompanies her blushing by a young man in his mid-twenties who approaches their table with wide eyes and a pad and pen.

“Maggie? You’re back? With Alex?” he stumbles, and Maggie laughs as she stands to hug their waiter.

“Jessy, you’ve done from pizza to Noonan’s?” 

He shrugs into their hug with a smile. “It pays better, and it’s more stable hours. Better for grad school.”

“Hey, look at you, growing up and going to grad school. Did you know, Danvers?”

“Of course I knew, Kara won’t stop complaining about how none of the other delivery kids understand her need for thirteen pizzas a night.”

They share a laugh during which their former pizza delivery guy glances rapidly between them. “So you two are – “

“No, this is just – “

“I’m just in town for the evening – “

“Catching up – “

“Not that it’s a ridiculous question, just – “

“So, I’ll be bringing you both whiskey in your coffees then, right?” Jessy spares them their embarrassed, pained stammering with a soft smile and a squeeze of Alex’s shoulder and Maggie’s hand.

“Yes, please.”

“God, yes.”

They can’t meet each other’s eyes while he sashays back to the kitchen, brimming with desire to text everyone who used to work at the pizza shop with him to tell them what a plot twist has arisen after all these years.

“So, Jessy – “

“Yeah, he’s a good kid.”

“And this isn’t a – “

“Date? No, I mean just – “

“Catching up – “

“Right.”

“Yeah.”

“Danvers – “

“You look beautiful,” Alex splurts, and when their eyes meet, it’s with fire and pain and long-forsaken but never dissolved want.

“So do you,” Maggie whispers, so softly that if Alex hadn’t seen her lips move, she might not have been sure she said it.

“So. You made Captain,” Alex repeats from earlier, and Maggie nods.

“Last year. They offered it three years ago, but I wasn’t ready, you know? I didn’t want the desk job, the whole coordinating instead of doing myself thing. But I got shot one too many times – “

“Maggie – “

“I’m fine,” Maggie promises, covering Alex’s hand with her own after Alex reaches across the table on a concerned impulse. “I promise, I’m fine. Lesbians gotta wear our bullet proof vests, right?” She chuckles to herself, and Alex rolls her eyes softly. “And come on, you can’t tell me you haven’t had your share of injuries since I’ve been gone.”

Flashes of war pass through Alex’s eyes as she remembers the first time she woke up in the DEO’s hospital bed without Maggie by her side. Without Maggie in her life.

She remembers giving birth without Maggie there to hold her hand and kiss her forehead.

She remembers… everything.

She avoids the question. 

“Is that the only reason you accepted?”

“The Captain thing? No.” Maggie pauses to thank Jessy for her drink and sips the coffee-flavored whiskey – because Jessy knows exactly what kind of courage this night is taking from her body – deeply and gratefully. Alex does the same. Their eyes meet over the rim of their mugs, and they offer each other a belated toast.

“To reconnecting,” Alex offers.

“To reconnecting,” Maggie gulps, refusing to flinch when it’s too hot, too fast.

“No, I wanted… there were a lot of things I wanted to change in the force, you know? And I could do it better as Captain than as a Detective.” She tilts her head and grins. “I still make sure to get out in the field, though. Like J’onn always did. How’s he doing, by the way?”

“Still getting out in the field,” Alex grins lopsidedly, but when their eyes meet again, it’s with visions of J’onn walking Alex down an aisle that never existed, but could have. Would have.

Maybe should have.

But didn’t.

Alex clears her throat, and Maggie takes advantage of her downcast eyes to stare at her more clearly.

“And what about you? How’s work, how’s… life?”

She doesn’t add ‘without me.’ 

She doesn’t ask if leaving her was worth it.

She’s already met Kim: she knows it was.

She doesn’t ask if being worth it made it not hurt.

“Long, hard. Like always. But good. Lena and I have been coming up with some good new medical breakthroughs – “

“I knew all those genius treatments coming out of National City Hospital wasn’t just from some random doctors,” Maggie smiles, and it’s full-throated and proud, and it makes Alex want to kiss her like she’d kissed other women the nights she’d gotten successful lab results, the nights she’d needed to celebrate with orgasms and a warm body and affection.

She pffts at the way Maggie casually calls her a genius, but she feels her face, her neck, reddening at the praise.

It makes them both stumble over their next words, battle through their next thoughts.

So much so that Alex doesn’t know whether she’s being rescued or destroyed when her phone chirps insistently in her pocket.

“I’m sorry,” she grimaces as she digs into her pocket, but Maggie waves her off.

“Director Danvers,” her crisp voice answers, and she’s gratified by the way Maggie’s jaw drops.

“Right. On it. I’m potentially bringing support with me. Got it.”

She stands and grabs Maggie’s jacket from the back of her chair and extends a hand to her ex.

“I could use a trusted agent on my six. Wanna hit the town?” she asks with a steely grin.

“Way to bury the lead, Director Danvers,” Maggie accepts her hand, and Alex gulps at the contact even as her heart races with adrenaline at the call.

“I was getting around to it,” she shrugs as they both tug on their jackets.

“Jessy, put it on my tab,” Alex calls over her shoulder as she and Maggie head out the door. “You wanna come, right? With me?”

“Ride or die, Danvers,” Maggie grins, and neither of them have time to process the implications, the promises made and broken, the contact created and destroyed, the potentials closed and re-opened.

Because Alex is tossing her a spare helmet and they’re hopping onto her Ducati, and they’re racing toward the explosion that just rocked the city center.

Together.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maggie saves Alex during a Cadmus attack, and sees Supergirl again

Later, she’ll have time to think about the way Maggie shoves her to the ground, how strong her hands are, how protective.

Later, she’ll have time to process the dizzy, blurred image of Maggie, standing above her almost immediately after sprawling on top of her, whipping a glock out of the small of her back and firing at the weak spot in the newest Cadmus armor.

Later, she’ll have time to ask Maggie how the hell she knew about that weak spot anyway.

Later, she’ll have time to thank her for saving her life.

Again.

But right now? Right now, she blinks, hard – once, twice, three times – and tries to get the ringing out of her head, and right now, she looks at the brick wall behind her, riddled with bullet holes where her head had been the moment before Maggie pushed her down.

Right now, she fights to get the stars out of her eyes from the push, combined with her body still buzzing from having Maggie on top of her, no matter how briefly, however out of context; from having Maggie’s arms wrapped around her waist as she sped through National City’s streets on her Ducati.

Right now, she stands, her fingers wrapped around her ray gun, plugging into the DEO comms and demanding an update from Winn.

“They hit hospital’s new exobio wing,” he tells her, “and Supergirl’s in there right now, digging out survivors. I’m picking up three – no, nope, sorry, four – new weapons signatures closing on your position, Alex.”

“No, it is three, Schott – just disabled one of them,” Maggie corrects, a tilted smirk on her face as she patches in and hefts a Kryptonite-laced rifle away from an unconscious Cadmus agent.

“It – I – Maggie? Is that – “

“It’s only temporary, Schott, don’t get – Alex, down!”

They move as one body – they move like they did all those years ago – crouching and signalling with nothing more than quick glances and sharp nods passing between them.

Alex winds up behind a police car with one of the newer recruits she’s trained, and she arches a commanding eyebrow at his obvious confusion at why Director Danvers is wearing an NCPD windbreaker.

“On my count,” she tells him, using language that Maggie, nearby, doesn’t need.

“Aim for the base of the weapon itself,” Maggie patches through their ear pieces, and Alex nods to confirm that yes, her agents should listen to the orders of the woman in a red leather jacket, jeans, and with nothing but a standard-issue glock in her hands.

They get the final three weapons – and Cadmus agents – out of commission just as Supergirl flies out of the hospital building, two civilians in her arms.

“That’s the last of them,” she patches in through the comm, and Winn whoops as Alex grins and straightens up.

Maggie, though, takes a moment longer.

She looks, now, somehow more scared than she did when their lives were all in danger.

Then, she was the image of calm, concentration, fierce protection.

Now, with the danger passed and everyone, even the Cadmus agents, safe, Alex thinks she sees her ex trembling.

Especially when she hears Winn’s voice in her earpiece again.

“My favorite pool shark! Why did no one tell me you were back in town? And how are you on scene? Why – “

“Whoa, I missed you too, Schott. I’ll come back to the DEO with Danvers – she banged her head, I wanna make sure she’s – “

“When she says I banged my head, she means I hit it slightly instead of getting shot in it because she saved my life, Winn, I’m fine, thanks to – “

“Maggie?” Supergirl’s voice – Kara’s voice – interrupts Alex and Maggie’s stammering through explanations of what had just happened, blushing through the high of protecting each other again, their easy synthesis in the field, still seamless after all these years.

Maggie gulps and Alex is sure, now: she’s definitely trembling, and she definitely hadn’t been during the actual fight.

“Jesus Christ,” Maggie mutters to herself before arranging her face into something mild and pleasant and not terrified to see the woman who was almost her sister-in-law.

“Supergirl,” she greets as she turns, and Alex is the one trembling now, rooted to the spot, her wide eyes flitting quickly between her sister and her ex, trusting the agents she’s trained to properly process the scene all around them while she… nearly has a nervous breakdown.

She meets Kara’s eyes for a moment, and they’re shining as she tosses her arms open for Maggie solemnly.

“First night back in town and you’ve already saved Agent Davers’s life again,” she says, wrapping Maggie in a genuine, if not awkward, embrace.

“Good to see you too, Supergirl,” Maggie’s hands immediately find her pockets as soon as Kara lets her go.

“Are you alright? I think I pushed you out of the way too hard, you hit your head – “

“Mags, if you hadn’t pushed me that hard, bullets would have been my problem, not a scrape and a bump. Thank you.”

“Awww, you two are still my favorite – “

All three women simultaneously disconnect Winn from their comms, all three trying to hide embarrassed smiles, trying not to feel hope, trying not to think of the way Alex has gone back to Maggie’s nickname, the way Maggie had sounded calling out Alex’s first name in the field.

“Why does everyone think spending time together means we’re back together?” Maggie gulps, trying to laugh it off.

Alex snorts, a little too hard, and Kara gives her a concerned frown. “I know, right? I mean, we’re lesbians. The whole friends with exes thing can be a thing, right? Pfft, so ridiculous. I mean, not that it’s ridiculous to think – I mean – “

“No, it’s good, I know what you meant.”

“Good, because I didn’t – “

“Okaaaay,” Kara holds her hands up to spare them both the rest of that conversation. “Director Danvers, I think I can take it from here with the other agents, if you want to… go back to what you were doing.”

Alex shuffles her feet and surveys the scene, standing a little taller with pride in her new recruits.

“Yeah, and you can tell me all about how you got the Director title, Danvers,” Maggie invites, watching Alex’s face closely for any sign of hesitation. “Although, we could also just – I did promise Winn I’d stop by the DEO, so we could – “

“Are you ready for that?” Alex asks, and it’s so soft and intimate that Kara steps away to give them space.

“To see everyone? Depends. Do you think I have enough ammo left?”

Alex’s eyes flood with tears at the slight break in Maggie’s voice. “None of them are angry at you, Maggie. You saw Kara, you heard Winn – “

“It’s only because I just pushed you out of harm’s way – “

“It’s not just that, Maggie. Really. It’s been years, and anyway, no one… no one did anything wrong. When we…”

_Broke up._

_Called off our engagement._

_Shattered everything we’d built._

“Yeah.”

“But you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, obviously, and – “

“No, I don’t mind if you don’t, I mean… it’s just, it’s where you work, and I don’t want to – “

“I’d love you to come,” Alex blurts before realizing the innuendo, before turning a bright shade of fuchsia and looking anywhere but Maggie’s eyes.

“Alright. Anyway, someone’s gotta make sure your guys process the scene correctly.”

“Crispy limo and charred carpet, huh?” Alex offers with a grin, her voice the one threatening to break this time before she tosses her hands back and lets her smile grow. “Definitely my jurisdiction this time, Sawyer. You sure you can handle it?”

Something flashes in Maggie’s eyes, and something swoops in Alex’s stomach.

“You bet, Danvers,” Maggie accepts, and, across their new crime scene, Supergirl suppresses a smirk and texts her wife that she’s betting five orders of potstickers that they’ll be back together within a month.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maggie has a heart-broken gay panic attack.

Maggie had said she was ready to head to the DEO and see everyone who used to be one of her teams, her family. To walk the halls where she’d first exchanged I love yous with her ex-fiancee, to pass the storage rooms where they used to work each other to silent orgasms after Thursday morning knife practices.

She’d said she was ready, and she was utterly wrong.

She’s trembling noticeably by the time they pull up to the DEO, and she doesn’t even bother hoping Alex won’t notice.

Because of course she does.

Alex stops short of taking her hand, but she bites her lip as she looks down at her. “We don’t have to go, Maggie. I can go debrief and you can meet me later. If you want. I mean, we could also just call it a night, and – “

“No no, Danvers, it’s fine, I’m fine. And anyway, I told Winn I’d come by.”

“He’ll understand – “

“Maggie?”

Both women turn to see Vasquez, stopped in her tracks with a shocked grin on her face. Maggie only has a moment to register her presence before Vasquez reaches for her hand and pulls her into a bone-crushing hug.

“Schott said you were back in town – “

“Oh please, you know you hear everything that goes down on the comms,” Alex swats at her playfully, and Maggie’s heart wobbles at how much looser Alex seems now than she was when they met.

“Hey Vasquez,” is all she has the words for, but that’s all she needs.

“You sticking around?” Vasquez wants to know, her hand still on Maggie’s arm, and Maggie deliberately avoids looking anywhere near Alex’s face.

“Just in town to talk to an old CI. I only extended my stay by a night – “

“Sometimes a night’s all you need,” Vasquez glances pointedly at Alex, who stiffens and arches a stern eyebrow that Maggie sees right through.

Apparently, Vasquez does, too.

“But now you’re going to ask if I have somewhere better to be, and then I’m going to say that it depends on your definition of better, and then you’re going to give me a death stare until I report back to my station and let you get on with your debrief so you two can continue your date – “

“It wasn’t a date – “

“Why does everyone keep saying it’s a date?”

But Vasquez just grins and straightens her spine in mock salute, offering a shadow of a wink to Maggie. 

“Ma’ams,” she nods as she starts away. “Welcome home,” she whispers to Maggie as she retreats back down the corridor, and the phrase makes Maggie wonder if she can still have anything like a home here.

Or anywhere.

She clears her throat as she and Alex desperately avoid each other’s eyes.

“Your debriefing,” Maggie murmurs after a long moment.

“Right,” Alex forces a chuckle, her eyes vulnerable and gentle and self-deprecating; such a contrast to the warrior she presents in the field, in the command center.

Maggie swallows the sudden urge to push Alex back into the cement wall, to cushion the back of her head with her hand, and kiss her until neither of them can breathe anything but the other’s breath.

She reddens when she realizes that Alex is staring at her; that Alex is watching her stare at her lips; that Alex has stepped almost imperceptibly closer to her, and it’s setting her body on fire.

“Maggie,” she says, and her voice is low and cracked. 

And suddenly she feels what she felt that night, all those years ago; the last time they made love, Maggie changing the music and both of them laughing so they wouldn’t cry, dancing so they wouldn’t break, stripping each other’s clothes off to delay the decisions they’d both made, the shards of happiness they’d both let crash to the ground.

Suddenly, she feels broken.

Broken by the woman whose life she just saved, who had moved on so damn well.

Because Alex was more comfortable in her own skin now – that much was clear, just from watching the easy way she interacted with Vasquez now, from watching the giggling and thoughtful way she was raising her daughter.

Her daughter, god, her daughter. 

The daughter that Supergirl’s wife is babysitting right now, because Mommy couldn’t be home tonight, because she was out at a meal that everyone kept calling a date with the woman she left behind.

Tears build in her throat and she wonders what the hell she was thinking, why she’s even still in this damned city, why Alex is looking at her like that when she’s do damn pathetic she never really moved on, apparently, even when she’d thought she had.

“I gotta go,” she shakes her head, stepping back from the heat of Alex’s skin as her left hand raises to her own mouth.

“Wait, what? Why? Maggie, I – “

“You’ve gotta debrief, and I… tell Winn I’ll text him.”

She turns without letting herself look at Alex’s face.

She doesn’t want to see the hurt and confusion there, because if she does, she’ll want to kiss the pain away, she’ll want to draw laughter and orgasms and sheer delight out of her, like she used to all those years ago, but now…

Now, she’s walking away, because now, all she wants is the woman who told her to leave, the woman who’s only gotten more perfect over the years.

Now, she’s walking away from the only woman she wants, even as her entire body screams for her to turn back around, to continue their not-date date, to see what could happen if she lets herself… hope.

She doesn’t expect Alex to call out for her.

She doesn’t deserve for Alex to call out for her.

But she does.

And – in spite of her hammering heart, or maybe because of it – she stops, and she turns, and she looks up into Alex’s eyes.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which one of them acknowledges that it was a date... who do you think it is? ;)

Years ago, she’d watched her leave.

She’d repeated the “see you around, Danvers” that had once made her heart soar and this time, shattered her heart in irreparable pieces.

All those years ago, Alex had watched her leave, with a crack in her voice, tears in her eyes, and “you’re gonna be a great mom” on her lips.

She’s not going to do that again: watch Maggie Sawyer walk away from her.

So when she catches Maggie staring at her lips – and when she stares down at Maggie’s right back – and her ex suddenly tells her she has to go before turning to leave, Alex is bewildered, because wasn’t tonight about trying to rebuild what they’d lost? What they’d surrendered?

But when Maggie actually turns to leave, instinct kicks in: and this time, the instinct is to keep Maggie by her side.

She calls her name and hopes her voice doesn’t break; more importantly, she hopes Maggie listens.

She does, and Alex isn’t sure if she’s shocked or just relieved.

“Don’t go,” her voice is a hoarse whisper, like she’s been crying even though she hasn’t.

“This was a bad idea, Alex,” Maggie’s eyes stay on the ground, along with Alex’s heart.

“Why?”

She can list all the reasons in her head, but right now, none of them seem to matter; and all she can do is hope Maggie feels the same way.

“Because we… Danvers, it was so many years ago. We were so many years ago. And I… I can’t move backward.”

A flash of anger streaks through Alex’s chest.

“So I’m backward.”

“No. No, Danvers, that’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

Chastised, Alex glares slightly but closes her mouth, listening, watching, as Maggie searches again for words.

“It’s just… I’ve made a life for myself. In Gotham. It’s not… it’s not what I had here. It’s not… you. No one can ever be you. But that… I can’t just run into you and your daughter and suddenly… Alex, you have a daughter, I can’t – “

“I do, and she’s utterly enamored with you – “

“Yeah, she is, and her mother used to be, too. It wasn’t enough for you; it’s not going to be enough for her, either.”

A silence fills the tense space between them, riddled with years of doubt and unsent text messages and relationships that felt good but not quite… right.

“It was never an issue of you not being enough for me, Maggie,” Alex protests, and her voice is soft and just this side of destroyed.

Maggie’s eyes soften at the gravel in her tone, and Alex wonders if maybe, just maybe, Maggie actually believes her.

“Whatever,” Maggie shrugs forcefully, and her words are passive-aggressive, but her gaze, now, is gentle. “It’s whatever.” Alex swallows an objection because Maggie presses on. “My point is, it… we don’t even know each other anymore, Danvers. And I don’t want to stroll into the DEO and pretend like we – “

“Okay, so let’s get to know each other again. Isn’t that literally what a date is, anyway? Getting to know someone?”

Maggie’s eyes sparkle suddenly, and for a moment, Alex has no idea why. 

“So you’re admitting it was a date, then?” Maggie’s lips curl into a smile, and all Alex wants to do is kiss her until neither of them can breathe.

“Stick around and find out,” Alex chances. The hurt that had been in Maggie’s eyes is giving way to hope, and it makes Alex’s heart absolutely soar.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kim helps Alex out of a Gay Panic Attack.

It turns out that she can’t stick around to find out if Alex meant that they’d gone on a date.

_Emergency back in Gotham, Danvers. I’m sorry. I had to go back._

Alex gulps as she reads the text, and swallows tears she thought she’d stopped shedding over Maggie years ago.

“What’s wrong, Mommy?” Kim asks her, waiting to get her mother’s consent before climbing into her lap.

Alex brings her face close to her daughter’s, both of them still in their pajamas.

It had been a late night, last night, and she and Maggie had agreed that it would be… smarter… for Maggie to go back to her hotel, alone. To continue this… dance… they were doing the next night instead.

Now, there wasn’t going to be a last night.

Alex’s sinking heart rises slightly when Kim nods enthusiastically, giving her mother permission to smother her face with kisses in a way that never fails to get them both squealing and giggling.

“Mommy’s just fine, Kimmy,” she assures her when they both stop squirming.

Kim’s giggly face turns into a slight frown. “But you had your sad face on.”

Alex arches an eyebrow, wondering just how much this child picks up, being raised by a family that includes a secret agent, two alien superheros, a human superhero journalist, a computer genius, and a CEO and inventor extraordinaire.

“I did,” she sighs, nuzzling her nose against Kim’s absently. “You remember Maggie, from yesterday?”

Kim practically rolls her eyes as she tosses her hands up, shifting in Alex’s lap so she can see more of her mother’s face. “Of course I do, Mommy. I only met her yesterday! And I think you have a crush on her!”

Alex didn’t know a five year old could make her blush, but she’ll have to jot it down on the long list of unexpected things her daughter can accomplish.

“Well, crush or no crush, I’m sad because Maggie had to go home to Gotham. She was going to stay for a few extra days, but this morning she had to go. Police Captain business and stuff.”

Kim bites her bottom lip, frowning in thought with a tilted head, and Alex studies her, wondering how she can be so much like Maggie when the only met – as the child pointed out – just the day before.

“Well, you’ll just have to invite her over again when she has a day off. Gotham isn’t that far, Mommy. Auntie Kara could fly there like that!” Kim snaps her fingers ineffectually, and Alex has to hold in a giggle.

“Maggie doesn’t like it when Auntie Kara flies her around.”

Kim shrugs, unconcerned. “She can fly you, then. Auntie Lena and Uncle James and Uncle Winn and Grandpa J’onn can all watch me. It’ll be like a big sleepover! And I can beat Uncle Winn at Twister, and – “

“Whoa, slow it down there, sweet face. I can’t just go down to see Maggie if she doesn’t invite me.”

“But why wouldn’t she invite you? She has a crush on you too, you know.”

Alex thinks about asking her how she got so precocious, but she doesn’t bother. She knows the answer.

Instead, she hesitates, sighs, and picks her phone up from where it had fallen between Alex’s thigh and the side of the couch when Kim crawled into her lap.

“Alright, little one. What should we say?”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maggie in Gotham, ft. Kate Kane

There’s blood streaming past her vision, and she suddenly wonders if this is where the expression “seeing red” came from.

Because Maggie is indeed seeing red, both physically and in terms of how incredibly enraged she is.

Not that any of that emotion shows on her face.

She waves off the rookie trying to assess the gushing wound above her eyebrow, and runs her hands over the young recruit’s shoulders. 

“You’re bleeding too, rook,” she murmurs, though she’s satisfied that the slash on his upper arm isn’t too deep.

“Captain Sawyer, let me – “

“Shh.” She holds up a tense finger, and he falls silent instantly. She keeps her left eye closed: she’s not going to see anything through that stream of blood, anyway.

She squints with her right eye down the darkened corridor, mouthing out a countdown and nodding right before both squad captain and cadet step out from behind the filing cabinet they’d been squatting behind and shoot simultaneously.

The stun guns that Maggie had worked for years to get required for GCPD are nonlethal, always. Courtesy of Lena Luthor, they leave no marks and no bodily trauma, but they certainly pack a punch.

In moments, she’s crouching over the unconscious body of the man her precinct had been tracking for months.

“Looks like he didn’t expect the GCPD to have L-Corp tech,” a voice calls down from the rafters.

“Easy, Jimmy,” Maggie mutters, but she’s grinning.

“Batwoman,” he stands ramrod straight and nearly salutes.

If the red-head, now swooping down to stand with them, is amused, she generously doesn’t show it.

“Sawyer,” she greets, and Maggie nods with a barely suppressed smirk as she checks to make sure her mark hadn’t hit his head in the fall.

“Jimmy, wanna run and call this in?”

“I assumed you’d want to, Capt – “

“The honor’s yours, kid. You earned it.”

The cadet nods and jogs out of the warehouse eagerly, where his radio will get crisper reception.

“You should have let him look at that eye,” Batwoman chides.

Maggie shrugs. “I’m fine, Kane.”

“If fine means you need stitches, sure. Come here.”

Maggie sighs but submits to her old friend’s care, chewing at the inside of her lip, hissing slightly in pain when Kate runs one of her newer gadgets over Maggie’s gash.

“It might scar, but you won’t need those old fashioned hospital stitches.”

Maggie smirks, finally. “Show off. But seriously, thank you. Couldn’t have caught this guy without your tip.”

“I’m sorry I had to call you out of National City. I just know this guy’s been targeting street-living kids, and you wanted him off the streets bad. I didn’t mean to take you from Alex.”

“How did you – “

“Please, I know you, Sawyer. A few extra days in National City? Personal days? Personal days that you never, ever, ever take? You might as well have sent up a smoke signal that screamed Alex Danvers.”

Maggie chuckles even as she reddens. “A Danvers signal.”

“Not as cool as a bat symbol, but hey.”

“I want her back.”

She says it fast and pained, and she’s not sure if it’s pain from her now throbbing head or from her chest.

“I want her back, but she’s got this brilliant little kid. I met her, I ran into them, and Alex looks so… perfect, so happy, without me, and I… I was right. She’s a great mom – “

“And you still want her back.”

Maggie jumps slightly as sirens announce backup’s (decidedly late) arrival. 

“It’s whatever.”

Kate sighs and touches her hand to Maggie’s non-bloodied cheek. “It’s not whatever, Sawyer. It’s your feelings. It’s real, and so are you.”

“Kate – “

“It’s not whatever, Mags.”

And with that, she leaps. Maggie blinks, and her friend is gone. 

She can’t help but shake her head and smile. She’ll never stop being awed by how she does that.

She fills out her report with relish; she’s never liked the idea of putting anyone in a cage, but the system is what the system is, for now, and damned if she was going to let this man target any more brown and queer kids.

She’s so absorbed that she doesn’t look at her phone until well after sunset, well after her day shift crew have gone home to their families.

Finally, though, she drops her glasses onto her desk, sighs, and stretches as she looks around her office.

It’s still surreal. Having her own office. 

She stretches out her neck as she rifles through the files on her desk in search of her phone and checks it idly, not expecting much. Except perhaps a text from Kate. 

Maybe, if Kate doesn’t think patrol will be that intense tonight, they could grab a drink.

Maybe, she should call Alex. Apologize for leaving so abruptly.

No. Why would Alex want to hear from –

Her heart skips several beats. Because her notifications are full of texts from her ex.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo I got marriaged and I honeymooned and I have an additional new job personal training and everything is soooooo exciting!!! But!!! Now I'm back at it!!! Hello!!! I missed you :D
> 
> An update on my books/where I'll be doing events this weekend/if you want me to be your online personal training coach here: https://queercapwriting.tumblr.com/post/176969445944/jpolish-writes-queer-ya-fantasy-holy-gay-it-us

“Alright, little one. What should we say?” Alex had asked her daughter when Kim had insisted – as Danvers children do, ever so precociously – that Alex and Maggie have crushes on each other, so naturally Alex had to make the first move and text the ex that she left because she wanted to… have Kim, one day.

A mile past complicated didn’t begin to explain it, but Alex’s daughter didn’t seem to view it like that.

“Perfectly simple,” Kim sat up straight in Alex’s lap, eyes shining with excitement.

“Where’d you learn that phrase?” Alex booped her nose.

“Uncle Winn was talking to Auntie Lena about quantum somethings.”

“Of course he was.”

“So it’s perfectly simple! Tell Maggie you’re sad she had to go back and that you want to visit.”

Alex strokes Kim’s hair absently as she mulls over her last in person conversation with Maggie: the hurt in her eyes when she’d said she hadn’t been enough for Alex before, asking why she’d ever be enough now; the hope in her eyes when Alex told her that it had never been an issue of not being enough.

“Okay,” she murmurs, more to herself than her daughter. “Simple.”

At Kim’s eager nod, Alex begins typing. 

Kim waits patiently, pointing it out proudly when she recognizes a word here and there. Alex peppers her with kisses each time.

“Alright. How does this sound?”

“Hey Mags. No, wait. I should change that to Maggie. Okay. Hey Maggie. No problem: hope the situation isn’t too bad back there. I hope you have someone reliable on your six. That means watching her back, protecting her.”

“Mommy, you’re a secret agent. I know what that means,” Kim rolls her eyes, exasperated, and as Alex suppresses a laugh, she accidentally hits send.

“Dammit! Oh. Uh, no repeating that at school, sweet face. It’s a bad language word that – “

“That grownups use sometimes when they’re upset. I know that, too. But Mommy, the message was good! It’s okay! But more, more!”

Egged on by her daughter, Alex nods, steeling herself, wondering if Maggie’s by her phone now, what she might think of those three blinking dots.

If she’s welcoming them or annoyed by them or… no.

No room for negative thoughts.

Hope.

“Anyway,” she reads to Kim out loud after a few minutes, “Kim and I miss you. No. I’m just going to say I miss you, for now, if that’s okay, sweet face. Wait. No. I miss you. I hope that’s okay to say. Kim misses you, too.”

She glances up at Kim for approval, and her nod is so enthusiastic, her eyes so proud, that Alex hits send again.

Her stomach does backflips.

“What am I doing?” she murmurs.

“You’re doing good, Mommy! More,” Kim demands, and Alex tries to hide the trembling in her fingers and suppress the growing excitement in her belly as she complies.

“Hope that’s okay to say, too,” she says aloud in the somewhat halting voice that means she’s typing as she’s speaking. “I meant what I said, by the way. About getting to know each other again. So if you find yourself in National City soon… or I could come to Gotham. If you wanted. Or we could just text. Or not. Whatever you want. I don’t want to pressure you. You’re not obligated to talk to me just because we ran into each other. Rambling. Okay. I love you. Wow. Dammit. Don’t repeat that, Kim. Deleting that bit… don’t know where that came from – “

“Because you still love her, Mommy!”

“Hush! Rabble rouser, rousing rabbles!”

“So exciting!”

“So many tickles!”

“No, finish the text first!”

Alex tries not to think about what it means that the first time she’s texting Maggie in years, she instinctively tried to wrap it with love.

“Rambling,” she repeats. “But…” she stares at her daughter, drawing courage from the children’s eagerness and sheer confidence. “You used to find that cute. So here’s hoping?”

She gulps.

“Should I send it?”

“Definitely,” Kim nods, crossing her arms over her chest and nodding firmly.

She wraps her mother in a massive hug when she confirms that she’s sent the last, rambling, text.

All that’s left to do now is eat ice cream, have consensual tickle wars, and… wait.


	13. Chapter 13

She won’t look at those texts until she clears up this crime scene. 

She won’t, because she can’t, because if she does… 

She looks. 

She shouldn’t, because there’s blood on the walls that needs her attention. But the message previews show up on her phone, and Alex’s texts look like they’re getting longer and more rambly and… 

Maggie gulps and gives the texts a quick read. Just to make sure Alex and Kim are okay, she tells herself. Just to make sure they’re alright. 

But… shit. When did Alex become Alex and Kim, and when did they become part of Maggie’s protectiveness? Shit. 

Her heart rate rises – as does the rush of blood to her face – as she reads Alex’s messages. She chuckles as Alex points out her own rambling, and heat pools deep in her belly when Alex bravely reminds Maggie that she used to find Alex’s rambling cute. Shit. She still does. 

Shit fuck damn. 

This is bad. 

Then why is she smiling? 

“Something amusing, Captain?” the chief of police wants to know, and she immediately pockets her phone and stiffens. 

“No sir, sorry, just… family stuff." 

Now where had that come from? 

"Sorry sir. I’m here." 

She immediately settles onto her haunches for a closer look at the blood spatter, clenching her teeth to remind herself why she does her job. 

"No need to be sorry, Sawyer. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you smile. And I’ve certainly never seen you smile within twenty-four hours of mentioning family." 

Maggie glances up to meet his eyes, a knot forming in her stomach. She shouldn’t have looked at her phone. She shouldn’t have… 

"Must be a special woman, huh?” he asks, squatting next to her companionably. Her shoulders tense before she realizes that he’s smiling softly at her. “No need to talk, Sawyer. I remember your cadet days, so I’ve known you long enough to know that talking isn’t your thing. I’m just happy to see you smile.” “

Thank you, sir,” she murmurs, wondering how she could possibly feel so small – pleasantly so – with her captain’s badge on. 

They finish their sweep of the crime scene in almost affectionate silence, drawing the same conclusions at the same moments, and agreeing without words to call Kate Kane in to help on this one. 

She’d nearly memorized, on first read, most of Alex’s words. She could hear them in Alex’s voice. She wondered – and she was surprised to find that the thought made her smile – if Kim had helped her mother with the texts. 

Her mother. Alex was a mother. It was something that she was both still wrapping her head around and that, somehow simultaneously, made complete sense. Not with her job, necessarily, but with her constant need to protect. 

“What the hell do I say to that?” she murmurs to herself as she leans next to her motorcycle. 

“You could always try good old-fashioned honesty. ‘I’d love nothing more than to come back to National City and make you see stars till the sun comes up, then make breakfast for you and your adorable child.’" 

"Jesus, Kate,” Maggie jumps, torn between rolling her eyes at Batwoman or reaching to swat at her upside-down form. “Do you always have to creep up on people?" 

"Gotta live up to my name." 

"Bats don’t creep." 

"You’re changing the subject." 

Maggie sighs, letting her eyes flutter closed and shaking her head as she thinks. "This is a bad idea, Kate. She wants to get to know each other again? We got to know each other the first time, and it ended in…" 

She’s too proud to say earth-shattering heartbreak, but she doesn’t have to. Kate was there when Maggie first moved back to Gotham, and it had been utterly clear. 

"Maybe running into each other was your second chance,” Kate tilts her head in the way she’d picked up from her friend. 

Maggie bites her lip and sighs. 

“Fine. Here we go, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry I’ve been so absent lately; I’ve been working over 12 hours a day, and I’m getting my PhD on Friday, which is actually quite exciting, I’m working on my next novel (if you haven’t already, check out my debut novel here – it’s on sale this week!! https://ninestarpress.com/product/lunav/), but mostly, my mental health has just been in the tank. 
> 
> I’ve been trying to self care, and it hasn’t been working well; but I’m changing my medications soon, so hopefully that’ll help…
> 
> Sending you so much love and support; we can all get through this world together <3 <3 <3


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara and Lena help Alex figure out how to text Maggie back.

She’s sleeping by the time Maggie responds.

But the moment her phone vibrates, she’s up.

She doesn’t even fumble when she reaches for her glasses; if anything, having a daughter has made her even more scary-efficient with her hand-eye coordination. She wonders vaguely if Maggie would notice, if they slept together again, if…

Dammit.

_Cool it, Danvers. It’s just texting._

Maggie’s texts aren’t quite as rambly as her own had been, but she doesn’t think she’s reading into it when she thinks she can read Maggie’s blushing into them.

_Sorry for the delayed response, Danvers. I wasn’t ignoring you – and yes, your rambling is still cute – just caught a tough case. Part of the reason I was called back. I’d like to. Get to know each other again, I mean. Do you and Kim ever find yourselves in Gotham? Rao, I sound like an old movie, don’t I? Speaking of Rao, how’s Kara? I know how Supergirl is, I have a TV like the rest of the world, but I mean, Kara. I miss her. I miss a lot. Anyway. Talk soon?_

She reads Maggie’s words, over and over and over, like if she reads them enough, they’ll make Maggie manifest across space, across time. The breakup, gone, their problems, solved, the… no.

No, that’s not how the world works.

And it’s funny, she chuckles to herself, because Maggie had always been the one to say it. That it never works out. Someone’s coming out relationship.

Dammit.

She calls her sister before she can even start hyperventilating.

Not with Kim in the house. She’s told her all about Mommy’s anxiety, and Aunt Kara’s, for that matter, so if she ever does see it, she doesn’t get scared; but Alex doesn’t want her to ever see it.

So she calls Kara.

And Kara is, of course, hovering outside her bedroom window within minutes. Lena is laying, bridal-style, in Kara’s arms.

“I hope you don’t mind that I brought reinforcements,” Kara grins apologetically as Alex opens her window and steps back with a sweeping welcome gesture.

“Not at all,” she finds a smile as she pulls her sister-in-law into her arms.

“Sorry to wake you both,” she murmurs, observing Kara’s Flash pajamas and Lena’s Arrow ones with mild amusement.

“We weren’t asleep, just relaxing. Don’t worry,” Lena assures her as Kara makes herself at home in Alex’s phone, reading the latest exchange between Alex and her ex.

“She wants you back, Alex. I mean, she’s terrified – but so are you, which is why you called, I’m assuming – but look at this. She wants you back.”

Alex pffts as Kara silently asks permission to show Lena the phone, too. She nods but pffts again.

“How would you know that? It’s just texting, it’s – “

“Alex, you never saw her. When Rick Malverne had you in that tank. You didn’t see her. That kind of love… Alex, love can always change form, but it never goes away, not really. And I think she might…”

“Still love you,” Lena whispers, nodding as she, too, reads the texts. “I’m assuming that you’re assuming that she knows you’re going to share these texts with the squad.”

Alex chuckles and nods again, collapsing onto her bed and patting the spaces next to her. Lena sits on her right side, Kara on her left.

Between their pajamas, Alex vaguely feels left out.

She’d contemplated getting a set of Batwoman pjs the other month to match Kim’s, but the thought that maybe Maggie had slept with the superhero…

She does have a pair of Supergirl pjs, though, and it would embarrass Kara just enough if she slipped them on.

It’ll give her something to do with her body, anyway; her whole being is buzzing with Kara and Lena’s words, swirling around Maggie’s words, the ghost of Maggie’s voice, in those words on her screen.

She changes, as she’s done hundreds of time before, as they talk, Kara and Lena still poring over the messages.

“How do you want to respond?” Lena asks as Kara snorts, realizing what Alex is changing into.

“You realize you’re literally taking off one pair of pajamas to get into another one?”

“And you realize that I’m still your older sister and as such, it’s still my job to annoy you.”

“And you realize that I’m married and you have a literal child sleeping in the next room.”

“And she would 100% approve my wardrobe change.”

Kara laughs, and Alex smirks victoriously before turning back around to notice, finally, what Lena’s been doing while the sisters were bantering.

“Lena, what are you – “

“I would never press send without your consent,” Lena promises, holding up one hand in surrender while the other keeps typing. “Aaand, done. What do you think?”

Alex gulps before taking the phone and reading Lena’s draft of a message, written as Alex, to Maggie.

Her ex girlfriend.

Ex… fiancee.

Ex everything.

It sent swirls of nervous heat through her stomach, but maybe Lena’s text was onto something. Maybe…

She changed a few things, scoffing at Lena’s obviously gleeful exaggeration of Alex’s rambling, showed it to Kara, got her sister’s approval, and…

Pressed send.

When her panic attack started again, Kara and Lena were there.

Just like they always had been.

And maybe, soon, Maggie would be there, too.

Maybe.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is also available on my tumblr (queercapwriting.tumblr.com) and in my other Sanvers fic, The Girls We Wanna Kiss, on here. To make it more organized for people, though, I wanted to give this one its own story.


End file.
